Stolen
by Saint Almasy
Summary: Twenty-one years ago, the infant grandson of the Duke of Dollet was kidnapped from his cradle, never to be seen again. Now, as a new Duchess rises in the midst of tragedy, evidence suggests Seifer is that missing child. Things are not what they seem, an enemy becomes an ally, and in this new world, the rules Seifer knows no longer apply.
1. Chapter 1

**ONE**

* * *

Some days, it's hard to piece together how I got here. I remember everything, or damn near everything, but I'll be damned if I can figure out where in all that madness, I became someone else.

How the fuck did a guy who never took orders from anyone end up the do-bitch of a lunatic determined to destroy all of time and space?

I try not to think about it, but when I'm a few drinks into a bender, it creeps back in and won't let go. It seeps into dreams where all I know is her.

Well, fuck her. Fuck all of them.

But especially her.

* * *

The bar is a dingy, dim shit-hole just outside of Dollet city limits, not far from the roach infested shithole apartment I call home. I could spare myself the Gil and drink there, but I'm in no mood to be alone tonight.

Alone is a relative term. There isn't a soul I know here. No one cares that today is my 21st birthday and I no longer know who the fuck I am or what my purpose is, but the idea of spending such a landmark day watching the roaches climb the walls is more depressing than spending it here among the drunkards, hookers, and deadbeats.

At least I fit in. No one asks questions. No one bothers me.

I order a glass of Sylkis and stare into my glass. I count the cubes and suspect the bartender cheated me, but I'm not in the mood for a fight.

" _In other news, the soon-to-be Duchess Sevillia Massey will officially accept rule of Dollet on Friday,"_ the man on the TV says. _"Her ascension comes in the wake of the deaths of Duke Alman Massey and his sons Alouicious and Copernicus in a tragic fire at their estate last week. Officials are still investigating the blaze, and have not ruled out foul play."_

I don't give a damn about the Dollet Dukedom, but I'm drawn to the screen, where a blond woman in her forties waves benevolently at a crowd. She's not traditionally beautiful, but her features are strong and appealing and she can only be described as handsome.

I feel like I've seen her somewhere before, but a guy like me doesn't rub elbows with the rich and powerful. The chances we've met are slim to none.

" _As you may recall, Sevillia was third in line for the title, and is no stranger to tragedy,_ " the talking head says. _"Her husband, Cassius was killed during the fight against Adel, just months prior to the birth of their first son, Caius. A second tragedy struck a few months later, when little Caius was kidnapped just weeks after his birth. He was never found. To date, no suspects have been apprehended in connection with Caius' disappearance. The boy, who would be twenty-one today, is believed dead."_

A chill steals over me as a photograph of the infant flashes onto the screen. He looks like every other newborn brat on the planet with his scrunched face and misshapen head, but my lungs constrict and my heart skips a beat as the image enlarges. The man holding him looks just like the face I see in the mirror every fucking day, minus the scar Leonhart carved into my head as a reminder that he was not to be underestimated, no matter how inferior I believed him to be.

What's more, the man in the picture wears the traditional red cape of the Dukedom, held across his chest by a chain with a familiar oblong plate.

Just like the one I wear around my neck.

* * *

I'm drunk by the time I return to my apartment, and I grunt an unfriendly greeting at the roaches who scatter when I flick on the light. On the table by the door is half a bottle of Mimmet, which I uncap and gulp down to make my brain shut up.

Back at the bar, I considered paying for an hour or two with a particularly intriguing blond prostitute with sky blue eyes and a wicked grin. She wasn't pretty so much as cute, and her wit would have made things interesting, but I'm too drunk and Gil is too scarce to waste it on conversation.

A year ago, I celebrated my birthday with my Posse. They're long gone now. They couldn't deal and split, and I don't blame them. They watched me circle the drain for a few years, and they're saints for sticking around as long as they did, but in the end, they left. I don't blame them, but sometimes, I fucking hate them for it.

The booze doesn't chase away the questions and it doesn't scratch the itch for companionship. I never liked being alone.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and pry off my boots, take another drink, and flick on the television, in need of distraction. I hope for some moronic sit-com or a documentary about organic farming or something equally mind-numbing, but there's nothing but news, and they're all talking about the soon-to-be Duchess, her dead husband, and her missing boy.

I can't make myself stop watching as morbid curiosity turns to bitterness and I grow more and more certain, that missing kid is me.

When I was little, I used to imagine my parents died with honor in some long-ago battle. In my head, my mother was the perfect combination of warrior and homemaker, as likely to bake cookies as she was to behead a tyrant. My father was a brave solider or a knight who wore armor and defended the world from savages. I built them into idealized versions of what my affection starved kid-brain believed parents to be. They were untouchable and perfect and I daydreamed that one day, they would come and tell me there was some mistake and take me home, where the curtains were made of lace and I never had to share with anyone else or beg for their attention.

The older I got, the less I cared to know. I figured they were either dead, or they abandoned me. If it was the latter, I didn't want to know them, no matter what their reasons. They doomed me to this fate and robbed me of the chance for a normal life. If they were dead, there would never be a chance to know them while I still lived.

It never occurred to me that maybe neither was true.

On the television, more details of the missing boy were revealed. There was no ransom, no note. Some theorized Caius was kidnapped by a recently fired nurse as an act of revenge. Others believed it was the work of Adel's sympathizers, meant as a message to Cassius to call off his army. Still others believed the boy was murdered or met with some misfortune and was buried on the grounds of the Massey Estate and his absence reported as a kidnapping to cover it up.

Didn't matter. There was no way the kid could be me. I wasn't that fortunate.

Even if I was, they wouldn't want me back.

Not after what I did.

* * *

I stare at my old trench coat for hours. It hangs in the corner, the edges tattered and stained. Hyperion leans against the wall next to it, left untouched for almost a year. I can't bring myself to get rid of them, but I don't want them anymore. They belong to someone else. Someone who isn't me.

" _I just want him to come home,"_ a younger Sevillia says on the screen. _"Just bring my baby home, no questions asked, just bring him home."_

Her heartbreak is not a put-on. The woman on the television is genuinely bereft.

Her eyes are the same bright cyan as mine.

The more I see her, the more sure I am that she is my mother.

It occurs to me, I don't even know what that means.

Mother.

* * *

I stumble into him late the next afternoon, still drunk, and when he turns to me with hostile, accusing eyes, he lifts his fists up next to his chin like he wants to fight me.

I recognize him by his absurd tattoo, then notice he's in full SeeD regalia.

"Chicken-wuss."

His hair is long and pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. It's streaked with a pale, sandy blond like he spent too much time in the ocean, his skin tan from too much sun. He's healthy and strong, and surely reaping the benefits of being a hero, and I count the medals pinned to the jacket of his uniform with envy.

No one pins medals on villains.

The absence of his former over-gelled spikes should make him even shorter than I remember, but it doesn't. If anything, he's taller, broader, meaner, harder.

"Almasy," he says, and I notice, his voice is half an octave lower, as if puberty set in after we last crossed paths. "You look like crap."

"What are you doing here dressed like that?" I slur.

"The coronation, or whatever," he says. "What do you care?"

"I don't," I say. "Get the fuck out of my way."

I reel away from him as the present and past collide. I never wanted any of them to see me this way.

I know what I look like. I know I reek of booze and bad decisions, the evidence of how far I've fallen is written all over my skin. It shows, how little I care, and I don't care that it shows. They don't get to judge me. They never walked so much as a step in my shoes.

Except for Rinoa. I know what she is and what she could become. She knows how this feels.

As I weave away from Zell, I chance a look back over my shoulder. He stands where I left him, and the look on his face makes me want to vomit all over the sidewalk.

I hate him for pitying me. I would rather him knock me out cold on the street than look at me like that.

Well, fuck him, too.

I don't join the rest of the city in the square for the celebration. I don't turn on the TV. I get drunk again in the dark and watch the blades of the ceiling fan spin round and round until I get dizzy.

That woman, who might be my mother, mourns her father and her brothers, her husband, and the baby she never got to see grow up.

If I'm really all she has left, she's better off without me.

* * *

 _Author Notes:_

 _I wrote this a long time ago and never had the guts to post it. I don't know if this pairing is one anyone really likes or wants to read about, and I'm not even sure this fandom is very active anymore, but I decided maybe it was worth a shot to put it out there and see. If you like it, would you be so kind as to leave a review?_


	2. Chapter 2

**TWO**

* * *

Sobriety brings clarity. Stone sober, the idea of being the lost child of monarchs is laughable, the product of an alcohol drenched brain and highly unlikely.

I'd like to stay in my apartment for a repeat performance, to numb myself for the next week, but rent is due. I go to day labor and pick up a job hauling concrete blocks from one pile to another and sweat my ass off for eight hours for a paltry sum that is far less than I'm worth.

It's thoughtless, idiot work that requires nothing more than a strong back, but they pay in cash and they don't ask questions.

I do it again the next day, and the day after that. Wash, rinse, repeat. I don't think about Sevillia Massey and her heartbroken pleas. I don't think about much at all.

It isn't until three days later it occurs to me, there's an easier way. One that doesn't involve me breaking my back for a handful of Gil or, when times are really desperate, foraging through dumpsters for discarded valuables to sell at the pawn shop.

After all, I might be the prodigal son. Even if I'm not, if I play it right, Caius Massey might just come back from the dead.

* * *

Sevillia Massey stares at Zell with a cool and calculating gaze. Her eyes sweep over him, from his polished boots to the collar of his jacket. It's predatory, the way she takes him in, and he expects to be torn apart any second now. He stands at attention, his hands clasped behind his back to keep from fidgeting with the toggles on his SeeD uniform. He feels like a bug under a microscope, the next meal for a hungry dragon.

Selphie stands beside him, all but bouncing with excitement, her green eyes are all twinkle. She can barely contain herself, but Zell is nervous. It's rare that he is ever given a leadership role, even if Squall recognizes his potential, a long list of screw-ups work against him when decisions are made about who is assigned the point position.

If only he could control his mouth.

The only reason he's in charge now is because Selphie is even less experienced a leader than he is. She might be Squall's friend, but he does not trust her to follow the mission directives. Either she would turn it into a party, or something would explode.

"I suppose you'll do," Sevillia says. "You understand, anything we discuss privately stays that way."

"Yes, ma'am," Zell says as Selphie chirps, "Of course!"

"You may call me Lia, if you wish," she says. "If you'll allow me to call you by your first names as well. I prefer to keep things informal among my staff."

Zell is fine with that, but he's still unsure of the scope of this contract. There are few details in the mission briefing and most pertain to financial matters. Zell isn't interested in payment. He gets paid the same, regardless. What he needs to know is why they're here.

Lia stands and smooths her hands over fine silk. She drifts across the room to a book case full of leather bound classics and runs a finger along their spines.

"I'm not convinced that my father and brothers deaths were accidental," she says. "The two of you are here because I no longer trust my staff, my family or my security detail to protect me."

"You think someone wants to kill you?" Selphie cries. "That's so scary!"

"Perhaps," Lia says. "Or maybe I'm just being paranoid. I wish I could say this was the first time these concerns have come up, but it isn't. You've been briefed about my son's disappearance, I assume?"

Zell nods and his heart squeezes with empathy at the sadness he sees in this woman. He can't imagine surviving so many tragedies intact.

"In addition to serving as my personal guard, I'd like to ask you to conduct an independent investigation into the possibility that someone close to me has committed these crimes against me and my family," she says. "I don't know if there's anything to be found, but your commander tells me that you're especially good at research, Zell."

Zell likes to read, he has a good memory, and his brain is full of useless facts, but he's not sure that translates into a talent for research.

"I'll do my best," he says.

"I'm sure you will," she says. Her fingertip brushes over the framed photograph of an infant. "I don't want to believe that someone so close would hurt me, but I can't rule it out, so I'm asking you to be merciless in your investigation and in your reports. Don't shield me from something you think might upset me. I'm not a fragile woman. I can handle whatever you discover, even if it hurts."

* * *

It isn't until three days later that I work up the nerve to devise an approach. There's money in this, if I play my cards right.

I've done my research. The Massey's are wealthy beyond my comprehension. They're not just some archaic dynasty that survives on name alone. They own a company that holds exclusive rights of manufacture for all of the G-army weapons, a contract that ensures their protection and continued independence as a nation. They employ thousands of people and Dollet's economy is built around Massey Enterprises.

Sevillia is head of her own company, a high end women's clothing line that specializes in formal evening wear and lingerie. If the rumors about her are true, she is a smart, savvy and formidable woman.

She won't be fooled easily, but she might pay to make me go away.

I clean up and shave and dress in my best, which isn't much. Slacks with no holes or stains. A dress shirt. My everyday boots with the mud cleaned off.

I have second thoughts as I approach the gate of Sevillia Massey's personal estate. Like they're just going to let me walk right on in. Like a hundred others haven't tried the same scam already. Who am I kidding?

It's too late to back out. The guard at the gate has spotted me and his face drains of color. He stammers something into his radio and steps out of the booth.

"Nic?" he asks. "Is that you?"

I don't know who the hell Nic is and I don't care.

"Nope."

The guard looks closer, shakes his head.

"S'pose you're not," he says. "You're younger, but damned if you ain't the spittin' image."

* * *

Zell stares at the Massey family tree he's drawn up to keep all the names and relationships straight. Anyone born with Massey blood is a Massey. Those that marry into the family take on the Massey name. There's too many too keep it straight.

He's spent the last few days researching the family history. The Masseys have ruled Dollet for over 500 years and they have never lost power, even when under siege by larger nations. Every attempt at occupation has been thwarted and repelled. They are small, but powerful and they've managed to stay independent through smart trade agreements, and until the last ten years, a highly skilled army.

"What do you think of Lia?" Zell asks Selphie. "Think she's hiding something?"

"I dunno," Selphie says. She examines her nails and picks at her cuticle. "Her whole family died. That's sort of a free pass to act weird, isn't it?"

"Didn't say she was acting weird," Zell says. He examines the family tree. "Her uncle's still alive. And his kids. And some cousins."

"I meant immediate family," Selphie says. "Anyway, I don't think she told us everything. There must be someone she suspects, right?"

"Maybe," Zell says.

The door to the study opens. Lia, dressed casually today in jeans and a man's work shirt, enters the room with a carafe of coffee. She sets it on the table, next to the sugar and cream and joins them.

She pours for the three of them. Her posture ramrod straight and her face a mask of indifference.

"Find anything interesting?" she asks.

"Sure," Zell says. "I didn't know all this stuff before. Dollet doesn't come up much in the history books."

"That's because, for the most part, we keep our noses out of conflicts and try to avoid going to political extremes," she says. "We're rather boring when compared to Galbadia or Esthar."

"Got any major enemies? Business or personal?" Zell asks. "Gimmie a place to start, because the history lesson is interesting, but it doesn't tell me much."

Lia sips her coffee and the mask slips. She's bitter, maybe angry.

"You don't belong to a ruling family or run a successful business without stepping on some toes," she says. "Around the time Caius was born, there was a movement to overturn the dynasty and implement a democratic style government with elected officials. They made a lot of noise, but Dollet has never truly been ruled like a kingdom. We operate like a democracy, we serve the country and its people and try to be fair in our decisions. We're not tyrants or despots or dictators..."

She pauses to sip her coffee again and her passivity slips away. Her quiet, smoldering fury reminds Zell of someone, he just can't place who.

"I was supposed to be in that house when it burned," she says. "Along with my father and my brothers."

"You were?" Selphie asks. "Ohmigawd, what happened?"

"We were delayed by traffic," she says. "If I arrived ten minutes earlier, I wouldn't be sitting here now."

Zell curses under his breath and mentally adds her to his list of suspects. So far, hers is the only name on it.

* * *

I sit in a small but ornately decorated room on the first floor of Sevillia's mansion. Beyond the heavy, silk drapes is a view of the ocean and the beach to the south. At the door, a uniformed guard says nothing and stares at me like he wants me dead.

They almost called the cops. The only thing that saved me from a trespassing charge was my apparent resemblance to a dead man and the chain I wear around my neck.

The longer they make me wait, the more anxious and trapped I feel. I want a drink. I want to get up and pace the room. Fight the guard. Get the hell out before it's too late.

It was a mistake coming here. A mistake, and I'm an ass for thinking I could extort a grieving woman based on circumstantial evidence.

By the time the door opens, I've been here twenty minutes, and my mouth is dry and my nerves are shot. I expect to be arrested or hauled out by the collar of my shirt, but there she stands and I feel sick.

In person, without make-up, the resemblance is even stronger. If I were a woman in my 40's, I would look like this. She's taller than she appears on the screens, solidly built but lean, and her hands are large, broad, and the same shape as mine.

Her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks and she stares at me, through me, and moves closer. Instinct says run, she will strike me, try to kill me, claw my eyes out, but if so, I deserve it.

She stares at me. I stare back.

My throat is tight and I sweat underneath my dress shirt. What I say next isn't as much of a lie as it should be.

"I think I'm your son."

* * *

Author's Notes:

Thank you to laylaevercrest for the review and the subscription!

Ao3 gave this a much warmer welcome, so updates might continue there and be suspended here. We'll see, I guess?


	3. Chapter 3

**THREE**

* * *

The second I set eyes on her in person, something snaps into place. It's recognition, and it sings in my blood the way Edea's call for my sword instantly bonded me to her. Mother. Blood. Family. My body knows it. My bones. I see myself in her.

It isn't her tears that move me but something deeper and more primal and I fight the urge to weep. I'm going to disappoint her. When she finds out what I am, my reason for coming, she'll hate me.

I never cared about disappointing anyone but Edea. Never mattered. I don't know Sevillia Massey from Hyne, but the thought of causing her any more pain is unbearable.

"I've made a mistake," I say. "I shouldn't have come."

I brush past her, actually ashamed of myself for stooping so low. I've always been an asshole, and I almost never consider how other people might feel about the things I do, but this is beyond the scope of my inborn assholery. No matter how desperate I am, and no matter how wealthy she his, it's fucking wrong to be here.

At the door, a familiar and unwelcome face greets me. His mouth twists into a sneer.

My impression of him now is the same as it was when I was wasted a week ago. He's a meaner, tougher version of the insecure, hot-tempered kid I used to torment for fun, but I'd bet all the hard-earned cash in my pocket that it still wouldn't take much to get him going.

"Oh, _Hell_ no!"

I don't know what he's doing here, but he's in my way and I want him out of it.

"Mind your own damn business, chicken-wuss. This doesn't concern you."

"The hell it doesn't."

He cracks knuckles encased in black leather and lifts an eyebrow. I'd like to smash his face against a plate glass window just for existing, or maybe toss him over the cliff because he's here where he isn't supposed to be.

It would be stupid to fight him now. In close quarters, he has the advantage, and I'm out of shape, unarmed, out of practice and I'm smart enough to know, I won't stand a chance.

"I take it you two know each other," she says.

"He's not your son," Dincht spits. "That's Seifer Almasy, and he's just trying to run a scam on you."

"Shut your mouth, Dincht. Before I shut it for you."

He lunges and belts me in the face so hard, I see stars and my ears ring. It's been a while since I've been punched and I forgot how much it sucks. I taste blood. It fucking hurts, but he doesn't need to know that.

"Zell, why don't you wait outside."

It isn't a question, it's an order. This is a woman who is used to being in charge. She holds Dincht's gaze until he backs off and steps away. He squares his shoulders and storms from the room.

Tilmitt, who I didn't even notice until now stands beside the door and glares at me, full of hatred. It takes me a minute to remember why she would be anything but indifferent.

Me and Dincht have history. He has a good reason to hate me, and it has nothing to do with the war. Tilmitt and I were barely acquainted before it all went down. Sure, she fought me a few times, but I wouldn't figure it was anything personal for her.

When I do remember her reasons, it's way worse than Dincht's sucker punch.

Trabia.

That's why she's looking at me like that. She hates me for what I did to Trabia.

I hate me for what I did to Trabia. What I was ordered to do. What Bitch-face made me do.

There were kids in that building. I told her. She didn't give a shit.

Sevillia paces around me, her expression hard to read.

"You're not the first distant cousin to show up here claiming to be my son," she says. "I suppose you thought I'd be so overwhelmed with joy, I wouldn't see through you?"

My mouth opens and closes and I can't think of a thing to say in my defense. She's right, except about the cousin part. I knew she wouldn't be easy to fool, but I was banking on some motherly instinct to kick in or something. If not, I banked on getting thrown off the property before I made it up the driveway.

"You thought maybe you could con me out of some cash?" she says. Her voice is pure acid. Her arrogance reminds me of me. "Convince me you're the real thing and then cut and run once you've gotten what you came for?"

That was pretty much my aim, until I saw her in person.

"How dare you," she says. "How dare you come here and pretend to be him?"

That's a good question. How dare I? What the hell was I thinking?

"I don't know which bastard cousin you belong to, but they will pay," she says. "I've had my heart broken too many times to count and yet you people continue to fuck with me!"

She's pissed, and god if I don't see so _much_ of myself there. Whatever is left of the kid I once was wants to throw my arms around her, to fall on my knees and beg her to see me and acknowledge me as her own. I want that more than I want money or forgiveness or hero status. It makes me sick to know, after all these years, I never got over being the kid no one wanted.

Blood, flesh, bone, I feel it. I belong to her. Not the way I belonged to Edea or Bitch-face or even Garden but in a more primal, instinctive way.

"Nobody put me up to this," I say. "I came on my own."

"Saw a news report, thought you'd give it a shot?"

"More or less," I say. "But will you just fucking _look at me_? Look at me, and tell me you don't think it's possible I'm him and I'll never darken your doorstep again. I swear to god, I don't want anything else."

She goes silent and she looks at me instead of through me this time. She takes in every inch of me, from head to toe, and her eyes linger longest on my face. Several minutes pass and it's too quiet. I grow uncomfortable under her scrutiny.

I'm being judged, weighed, and I can't get a read on her assessment. She's too composed and calm considering how pissed she was only minutes ago. She's looking me over like a business proposal she's not sure is worth the risk.

The possibility that I might actually barf increases exponentially.

"You look like Nic,"she says.

"I don't know who the hell Nic is," I say, "but people keep telling me that."

"My brother. Copernicus," she says. "He was a year older than me. He died in the fire a couple weeks ago."

She says it like she's reading it off a cue card. My gut says she's hiding something. There's more to it, but I don't know enough to pin down what it is. I could be she's put on her public face to mask her grief, but I swear there's something else behind it.

"Why don't you have a seat," she says. "Do you drink whiskey?"

"Pretty much all I drink."

She opens a panel in the wall. Inside are decanters of booze, from clear to ruby to amber to dark brown. I don't know what all of them are, but I'm guessing they're pretty expensive if she keeps them in fancy crystal bottles.

She pours two glasses and sits on the couch directly across from me and passes me one.

I've never tasted fine whiskey before. It's smooth, but it still burns going down.

"I can't tell if you're sincere or a really good con," she says.

"Try a little of both," I say. "Money was the end goal, but I wouldn't have come if I didn't have some proof."

She sips her drink and looks at me over the rim of the glass.

"Aside from the obvious," she says, "what proof do you have?"

I hook my thumb under my necklace.

"I've had this my whole life," I say. "It looks like the thing you use to hold your cape on. I don't know what it's called."

She sips her whiskey.

"What else?" she asks.

I have nothing else but a gut feeling.

"The clasp could be stolen," she says.

"Could be," I say. "Probably was, along with your kid."

"Good point. What about where you came from? Your childhood?"

"My birthday is December 22. I'm twenty-one," I say. "All I know is, when I was four months old, a woman brought me to an orphanage in Centra and left me in the care of Cid and Edea Kramer. Suspect you can piece together the rest."

She nods slowly, sips her drink and stares at the chain around my neck.

"Seifer Almasy,"she says to herself. She turns thoughtful. "Do you know any of the old language, Seifer?"

"Not a word."

" _See fehr_ is old Dolletian for _he is_ ," she says. "Few people speak it anymore except the family and a handful of old-timers. Native Dolletian died out about 200 years ago when Galbadian replaced it as the common tongue. In short, _See fehr al Massey_ means –"

" _He's a Massey_ ," I finish. I laugh at the absurdity. "That fucking figures. All these years and I don't actually have a name."

"Perhaps," she says. "Maybe it's just a coincidence."

I shrug.

"Pretty damn big one," I say.

She grows quiet and I follow her gaze to a portrait between a pair of bookshelves. It's old and the people in it are dressed in finery from days long past, but I still see the resemblance.

"Take off your pants," she says.

"What?!"

"My son had a strawberry birth mark on the back of his left thigh. It looked like a lopsided diamond."

I stop breathing.

I have a birthmark on the back of my left thigh, just like the one she's described.

Well fuck me.

This is real.

* * *

 _Author's notes:_

 _Thank you to laylaevercrest and kikodaisywrites for the reviews. I've decided to keep updating here. The audience here is very different from ao3 but it's good to crosspost._


	4. Chapter 4

**FOUR**

* * *

She asks me to stay but I decline. Pending a blood test to confirm we are related, there isn't much to say. I can't give too much of myself, and neither can she.

I go home and drink with the cockroaches and rub the flat plate of my necklace with the pad of my thumb. The smooth metal is no comfort. It's a symbol of everything that could have been, a life that might have been mine in a parallel universe. It's no comfort, but I drink and worry the chain, and wonder what comes next.

I'm surprised she didn't throw some cash at me and tell me to get lost. That was the plan. That was my expectation. I never thought she would want more.

If this is for sure, I will go from tragic, lost child, to the family's dirty secret. If Lia was as practical as she seemed, she would bury me.

Instead, I'm her hope. A dream come true.

She doesn't know me.

I drink so much, I black out, and I wake up in the bathtub covered in vomit. A sane person would stop drinking. I turn on the shower and lay under the hot water and finish the bottle.

When it's gone, I dress in the least filthy thing I can find and go to the bar.

The hooker I almost took home before sits at a table in the back. She smiles. I grimace back and order her a drink.

I shell out the Gil for an hour of her time. We stop for a fresh bottle on the way back to my reeking apartment.

What she expects is not what she gets. Her hands slide over my chest as soon as the door is shut but I push her away. I don't want her to touch me.

All I can think of is Ultimecia inside Edea's body, using me like a wind-up toy. The scars her fingernails left on my back raise and prickle and I want to puke. All this time, and I can still feel her. All that lust, all that hate.

It's not sex I need. There's a deep, unsatisfied craving way down in my soul for things this girl can't give me.

She tries again and I flee to the other side of the room. I might kill her if she lays a hand on me, even though that's what I paid her to do.

I pour each of us a drink. She sits at the table and watches me. I can't look her in the eye.

I'm not a man anymore. I'm a dumpster fire. A demon, walking around in a man's skin.

"You paid for my company," she says. "Tell me what you want."

I rub my thumb over the metal plate at my throat. I answer her honestly.

"Nothing."

* * *

Lia's attempts to contact Almasy have failed. Zell suspects Seifer has left town, but he doesn't tell Lia that. She's pinned all her hope on a man she doesn't know or understand. Zell has never understood Seifer Almasy, either. Not his motives. Not his choices. Not his reasons.

After four days of silence, Lia sends Zell off in a company car to find him. She makes Zell promise he won't start swinging, and he agrees, but it's a promise Zell doesn't think he can keep. When Seifer is unwilling to cooperate, a fight is inevitable.

He sees the resemblance between the two, and in the portraits of long-dead Masseys that line the walls of Lia's home, but that does not mean anything to Zell. He doesn't believe this is anything more than a scam on Seifer's part. He only wants some quick cash to fuel his aggressive descent into oblivion.

It's plain to see, Seifer is drunk more than he isn't. It shows.

Zell climbs out of the car in front of Seifer's apartment, and he's torn between utter disgust and sorrow. He's not so blind that he can't see Seifer was only partly responsible for what happened. He was there. He saw what it did to him.

He knocks on the door, but Seifer doesn't answer. He paces the hall and waits, and then tries again.

Maybe he isn't home.

Zell waits some more, checks the time, and knocks again. Waits, nothing.

Downstairs, he convinces the landlady the tenant in 3A might be wounded or otherwise in danger. The woman accompanies him to the door and unlocks it.

A vile odor hits him the moment he steps inside. Dirty socks. Unwashed human flesh. Rancid food. Vomit. Every surface in the room is littered with empty liquor bottles and dirty clothes are spread across the worn, brown carpet.

Seifer is naked and unconscious on the kitchen floor. There is drying vomit on the linoleum beside him and a nearly empty bottle of cheap whiskey next to his head. He looks dead.

Zell checks his pulse and lays a hand to Seifer's chest. He's still breathing. He still has a heartbeat.

"You sorry motherfucker," Zell says. "What the hell are you doing to yourself?"

He remembers Seifer in his prime. Tall, muscular, confident and as mean as a belhelmel blade. That cocky smile Zell loathed and admired in equal measures.

Back then, Seifer could have done anything if he had a little more humility and a little less pride.

Seifer has no pride left. Zell wouldn't have found him in this state if he did.

The landlady stands in the hall, awaiting the verdict. She has not stepped a foot inside. Zell would bet she doesn't want the inconvenience of finding a dead body in one of her rentals. He reassures her that everything is fine, and she leaves without a word.

Zell crouches down and shakes Seifer's shoulder. His skin is clammy and cold.

"Get up, Almasy."

Seifer doesn't move. There are eight long, ugly scars on his back. They stretch from his shoulders to his hips.

Something tore him wide open not so long ago.

Zell goes to the cabinet and fills a glass with ice water. He dumps it over Seifer's head, and he wakes, sputtering and cursing.

"Fffffuck."

Zell swears he can see the bones of Seifer's face beneath his pale, sickly skin. The shadows under his eyes only amplify the effect.

"Get up," Zell says. "Test is back. Lia wants to see you."

Seifer rests his cheek against the floor and closes his eyes.

Either out of pure stubbornness, or abject incapability, he's making this harder. Zell does not want to be the one to clean him up. He very nearly despises Seifer, for a lot of reasons, but this is not something Zell wants to see.

He lifts Seifer into a sitting position and Seifer spits out rapid, gun-fire curses and insults but he's in no shape to back them up. Zell grits his teeth and ignores them. He promised Lia he wouldn't hit Seifer, and he plans to keep that promise. Even if it would feel amazing to deck Seifer good and hard a few times for falling apart.

Seifer fights him, wrenches away, and crawls across the floor to cower beside the stove. He folds in on himself, covers his head, flinches from imaginary blows.

Zell has never seen anything so pathetic in his life.

He offers a hand and Seifer bats it away.

"Don't fucking touch me."

"Then don't make me," Zell says. "Get up. Right now."

The bathroom is as disgusting as the rest of the apartment. There is a black ring inside the toilet and dead roaches in the corners. It smells of piss.

Zell starts the shower and shoves Seifer toward it. Seifer shoves back.

"You don't want to do this, Almasy," Zell says. "Get in the damn shower or I'll make you."

"Fuck you."

"Not even on a good day. Besides, don't know what kind of fungus you're growing," Zell says. He thrusts a passably clean washcloth and a bar of soap at Seifer. "Clean yourself up."

While Seifer showers, Zell searches for a clean towel but everything smells of mildew or dirty socks. In the closet, he finds a sheet waded up at the back of a shelf. It will have to do.

Clothes prove to be a bigger problem. The only thing clean are a pair of underwear and some stained, holey sweat pants. He finds the least offensive smelling shirt available in one of the piles of clothing on the bedroom floor. It isn't fresh, but it isn't so gross that it reeks.

Once Seifer is dressed, Zell coaxes him to the car with the promise of alcohol.

He doesn't keep that promise.

In the car, Seifer slumps against the window and stares out, unseeing.

It's hard to hate a man in such sorry shape.

* * *

I don't want to know the truth. It's better, not knowing.

I've spent a full five days doing nothing but drink. I hoped it would be enough to kill me.

When Dincht shows up, I'm less sure I want to die, but I'm definitely not sure I want to live.

He lies and says he'll get me something to drink, but I can't muster the strength to be pissed when we stop in front of a clothing store instead. He cuffs my wrists to the steering wheel and leaves me there.

When he returns, he unlocks me and I think about decking him, but I don't.

He chucks a pair of gray slacks and a dress shirt my way and orders me to change. I do it only because I can't stand the stench on my clothes.

I'm almost presentable by the time we arrive at Lia's estate. My hair is still damp, but I don't smell like puke and mildew anymore.

She doesn't offer me a drink this time. I almost beg her for one, but it's not even noon, and I don't want her to know how bad it is.

There's a stranger in the room with us. He looks like a lawyer, but also like he might be related. A cousin, maybe.

"I'm sure Zell told you, the test is back," Lia says.

"Yeah."

I draw in a shaky breath.

"Are you ready?"

I'm not. Not even close. I spent days trying to destroy myself so I don't have to know. Either verdict will be the death of me.

I nod anyway and sit down. Dincht sits at the other end of the couch. I don't know why he's still here. It isn't his business.

The lawyer opens a sealed envelope and reads the contents to himself. He is not pleased with what he reads.

My hands shake and my heart starts to pound.

"The test results indicate that you, Seifer Almasy, are without a doubt, Caius Massey."

My vision blurs, my pulse throbs behind my eyes, and everything goes stark white. The room around me is so quiet it's a vacuum. No one moves or breathes and when my vision clears, Lia sits across from me, her cheeks wet with tears.

"You really are mine," she says.

"I'm not what you expected."

"No," she says, "but you're _mine_."

Her face is full of defiance, like she would wage war and fight to the death to defend me.

"I understand if you don't want this made public," I say. "I wouldn't claim me, either."

Lia wipes her eyes and moves to the space beside me. I shrink from the hand that reaches for my face.

"You being my son presents a bit of a PR problem." She withdraws her hand and lets it rest in her lap. "But nothing that can't be fixed."

I laugh at how over-simplified that is. I wonder if she understands how much the world hates me.

"I bombed a fucking school," I say. "How do you fix that?"

"Spin it so you become the victim," she says. "Which, from my understanding, you were."

She wipes her eyes again and sniffles. She's having a hard time keeping her composure.

I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I'm in desperate need of a drink so I don't have to feel.

"Good luck with that," I say. "So what now?"

Her knuckles brush over my cheek and her eyes soften.

"We get you cleaned up, dried out, and you stay here, where you belong."

Where I belong? I can't even picture it.

"I..." she begins. "I haven't held you since you were a baby. I know I'm a stranger to you, and maybe it's a lot to ask, but could I... would you let me hug you?"

If she touches me, I might spontaneously combust or choke her to death or lose my mind, but I grit my teeth and let her. It breaks me wide open, the thought that for the first time I can remember, my mother is holding me. I wish I could say it feels good, but it makes my skin crawl.

I catch Dincht's eye over her shoulder.

He looks troubled.

What does he know that I don't?


	5. Chapter 5

**FIVE**

* * *

I used to have nightmares. Long before Ultimecia took hold of my mind.

They were always about being left behind. Abandoned. Forgotten. No one remembered my name.

Isn't it funny how the things you fear as a kid seem so stupid when you're grown? Now all I want is to be forgotten. To be left alone, my name erased from the history books.

Lia makes it very clear my return will be public. She wants the world to know I am alive. She wants my kidnappers to know they did not win.

She talks of the family history. Of this cousin and that uncle and her father and the line of succession. I barely hear what she has to say. All I can focus on is how badly I need a drink. My hands shake. My stomach is in knots. Her words have no meaning.

I fade in and out of the conversation until the lawyer's voice raises to a shout and it snaps me back into the present. His face is red, his eyes bulge.

"I won't stand for this!" he shouts. "The people of Dollet will not allow you to put a murderer in such a critical role, Lia."

"I am the Duchess," she says. "He is my son and I say who will succeed me, not you or anyone else in the family!"

"You don't even know him!"

"That's right," she says. Her words are the edge of a steel blade that cuts him down. "And neither do you, but he's blood, and you will accept my decision or find yourself serving someone else. Do you understand me?"

"Lia, be reasonable!"

Her cheeks color and her eyes flash and I see myself in her fury. This is a woman you do _not_ fuck with, and I smile because it reminds me of those childhood daydreams about what my real mother would be like. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't all a pipe dream.

"Don't assume I'm so overwhelmed with joy that I'm incapable of making decisions for myself, Ronald," she says. "You of all people should know better."

"All I'm suggesting is that you give this some consideration," he says. "The witch may have permanently damaged him."

His eyes flick to me like he expects me to kill everyone and set the house on fire. I snort at this. This Ronald guy doesn't have a clue about what did or didn't happen, or what kind of damage she did to me.

"I'm fucked up, but I'm not crazy," I say. I can't look Lia in the eye so I find something else to focus on. For a second, it's Dincht, sitting quietly in his place at the end of the sofa. He's still got that look, like he's trying to puzzle something out. Curiosity gets the best of me. "What?"

He shakes his head and watches Lia without comment. He's picked a fine time to keep his big mouth shut.

"Look," I say, "don't make any decisions on my behalf. You don't know me, and you may not want me around once you do. And for god's sake, can I get a drink?"

Nobody says anything. My insides twist and shake, and Lia looks at me like I'm a mangy, half-starved dog. A hundred Gil says that's an accurate description.

When no one moves, I get up and help myself to the beverage trolley. I fill a crystal glass with Mimmet and pretend I can't feel their stares.

Two swallows eases the craving. When I return to my seat, Lia and Ronald are locked in a stare-off. Neither is willing to back down and the silence gets more tense as the seconds pass.

"You're dismissed, Ronald. We'll discuss the logistics in the morning."

"Lia-"

"Get out," she says.

His disgust is plain, but he obeys.

The door closes and Lia's posture loosens. I wait for her veneer to crack, for the tears to come, but they don't. She's less emotional than I expected. There's sorrow in her face, uncertainty, but she's too strong to show anything else. I wonder if my father was the emotional one or if time and loss have hardened her.

"Forgive Ronald," she says. "He only wants what's best for the family."

"I'm probably not it," I say. I sip the Mimmet. "If you were smart, you wouldn't want anything to do with me."

"If I were smart, I'd throw some cash your way and tell you to fuck off," she says. A hint of a smile crosses her face. "You are a risk, but as I said, there are ways around it, but first we have some work to do."

I know what she means. I'm a drunk. I've done everything in my power to burn myself to the ground short of lighting a match.

I wonder how she plans to fix all the things Ultimeica destroyed.

* * *

Over a late lunch and more drinks, Lia asks me about my life before bitch-face. There isn't much to tell. I was an average student who could have done better if I applied myself. No one could beat me if there was a blade in my hand. I loved a girl who defied everything the world said she should be, but I don't tell her that part. Rinoa is one of many things I won't talk about.

I wanted to blame her for all of it. If not for her, I never would have set foot in Timber that day. If not for her, I wouldn't be a train wreck. If I try hard enough, I can convince myself it's all her fault, but that's not the truth.

The dreams were there before Rinoa. This fate was inevitable. If not in Timber, the witch would have taken me elsewhere.

Lia does not ask about Ultimeica. She doesn't ask about Edea. I'm glad. I feel guilty whenever I think of her. For what we were both compelled to do. Puppets. We were only puppets to her.

* * *

Zell checks and cross-checks dates and the math doesn't add up. Not unless Seifer was the first baby to be born five months late.

Cassius Massey went off to fight Adel in November, a full year before Seifer was born. The only record of a visit home was logged in June, six months before Lia's due date. He died not long after. Maybe Cassius came home prior to that, but there was no notation of it in the family log.

Maybe, Cassius wasn't Seifer's father.

That begs the question, if Seifer is not Cassius's son, is it likely this was the reason for his kidnapping? Who was his biological father, if not Cassius?

The bigger question is, who stood to gain from it? As third in line, Lia's child was never a threat to her brothers while they lived. If the fire and the kidnapping are related, who would benefit?

There are too many Masseys to figure out who they all are and which are blood. It is late, and Zell's eyes burn from trying to make sense of something that made no sense.

He doesn't share his thoughts with Selphie. She's quiet for now, all her attention given to the task of searching through surveillance video, and Zell is not in the mood to listen to her chatter. He packs up his files and heads to his quarters for the night.

It's hard not to feel sympathy for the fallen knight. He is a far cry from the bully he once was, and it makes Zell sad to see how close to self-destructing he is. He could have been anything he wanted. Should have been.

That does not mean Zell trusts him. Blood tests confirmed, but Seifer only cares about Seifer. Zell does not trust that he won't break his mother's heart for profit.

There is a sound in the hall as Zell strips out of his uniform. Footsteps, the creak of door hinges.

Zell pulls on his sweat pants and a t-shirt and steps into the hall. Beneath an ornate crystal light fixture, Seifer stares at a painting in a gilded frame.

"Lookin' to steal some valuables before you split?" Zell says.

"Shouldn't you be out back, pecking bugs off the lawn?"

Zell cracks his knuckles. "You better not be planning on taking off."

"Thought about it."

Zell isn't surprised. Dismayed, but not surprised.

"It'll kill her, you know," Zell says. "You want that on your conscience, too?"

"Fuck you," Seifer says. "I didn't ask for this."

Zell's temper gets the best of him. His hand shoots out and locks around Seifer's throat. Seifer stumbles back and hits the wall, and Zell pins him there. He's forgotten he's junctioned for strength. A little more pressure, and he could crush Seifer's windpipe.

"Liar," Zell hisses. "You're the one who showed up on her doorstep. Too bad if you got more than you bargained for."

Seifer's face is turning purple. Zell releases him, steps back and shoves his hands in his pockets.

"This is your chance to start over, with everything you could ever want and a buttload of cash at your disposal," Zell says. "Don't be an idiot."

Seifer rubs the reddish skin at his throat.

"What would you know about what I want?"

"I know money wasn't the only reason you came here."

Seifer falters and Zell sees straight through him like he's made of glass.

"Money was an excuse," Zell says. "You wanted it to be real."

"How perceptive," Seifer says. It lacks the punch of his usual snide commentary. "I never expected it to be."

"Well, guess what? It is," Zell says. "And if there's any humanity left in you, you'll man up and stay."

"Yeah? What do you know about being a man, chicken-wuss?"

Zell fumes over the slur, but he won't give Seifer the satisfaction.

"I know that real men own their mistakes," Zell says, "instead of running away or drowning themselves in alcohol."

"Says the brat that cried over everything and sulked like a baby over petty shit."

Zell smiles his meanest smile.

"Better than laying in my own filth in that disgusting apartment of yours," Zell says. "If you really wanna die, do it like a man and not some pathetic coward."

Seifer's fist pops Zell in the mouth. His bottom teeth cut into the inside of his lip and his mouth fills with the taste of salt and copper. He smiles and shakes off the pain.

He's hit a nerve. Seifer looks _wounded_.

"Suck it up, Almasy," Zell says and backs down the hall. "You're not doomed, so get over yourself and fix this."

Zell spares him one last glance as he returns to his room.

The look on his face almost breaks Zell's heart.


	6. Chapter 6

**SIX**

* * *

For a couple hours after Dincht tried to snap my neck, I wander the halls. The house is not exactly a mansion, but it's more spacious than any place I've stayed outside of a hotel. It's quiet. Unlived in. Like a museum.

The only sound are my footsteps, muted by thick pile carpet that's probably made from the silk of captive-bred caterchipillars or the pelt of some endangered animal. I consider taking off my socks so I can feel it under my bare feet. I imagine it would be a lot like walking through freshly mowed grass.

Back when we were kids, me and Fujin would roll in it. Raijin never joined in. He was afraid he'd squish a bug.

I don't want to think about them.

Instead I think about my mother. An afternoon in her company hasn't told me much about who she really is. Any other woman in the world would lose her shit if reunited with a child everyone thought was dead. I only saw flashes of what she was really feeling.

You're mine.

After everything, she still wants to claim me. I can't get my head around that part.

At the end of a long hallway lined with professional but eerie landscape paintings and portraits of long-dead relatives, a door stands open. It's just a crack, but every other door in this wing is shut tight. Light spills out onto the carpet, a soft and warm glow from somewhere inside.

I assume it's a study or an office when I peer inside.

It isn't.

It's a child's room.

The carpet is a thick baby-boy blue. The walls a warm shade of cream. A heavy wooden bookshelf is filled with familiar fairy tales in leather-bound hardback. Plush toys sit on top, along with a framed photograph of Lia holding an infant swaddled in blue.

I know without being told, that photo is of me.

Perverse curiosity drives me to investigate. There isn't anything important to be learned here, but I can't help myself.

In the middle of the room is a wooden rocking horse, painted white. It's free of the grubby fingerprints or the stain of age. I doubt any kid's ever used it.

On the far wall is a crib that matches the bookshelves and remaining furniture. Heavy, dark wood that gleams in the lamplight. I bet, if I ran my finger over the top of the dresser, there wouldn't be a single speck of dust to be found.

All the hair on my arms stand on end and I get a weird, sick, and hopelessly sad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

She's left my room exactly as it was the day I disappeared. It's a shrine to what could have been, to what was lost, and to what she never expected to find again.

This is more upsetting than I want it to be. My chest gets tight. I can't breathe.

"Twisted, isn't it?" Lia says from the doorway. "Nic used to tell me it wasn't healthy. To leave it like this."

"Why did you?" I whisper. I can't stop looking at the crib. "Why would you?"

"To turn it into a guest room or a home gym felt like giving up," she said. "I never believed you were gone. I told myself, I would have felt it if you were. You came from me. You were a part of me. I would have known."

My eyes burn. My throat constricts. I don't want to hear this.

She drifts toward a rocking chair by the window and arranges the knitted blanket draped over the arm.

"I haven't been in here in years," she says. "I used to sit in here for hours. I'd try to picture what you looked like at age four, age eight, fourteen. I don't remember when I stopped, but I could never bring myself to erase you..."

In an instant, I love her for it. Because I'm a piece of shit and she knows it and she loves me anyway. I don't deserve it, and that doesn't matter to her. I don't know that kind of love; I've never had it, but I want it.

She faces me, and her eyes shine with tears in the lamplight. They course down her cheeks and her mask cracks. Her face crumples and she holds out a hand to me.

This time, I go to her. This time, I let her hold me. This time, I don't want her to let go.

* * *

In the morning, before the sun is even up, they come for me. I don't know what's going on or who these people are. I'm strapped down before my eyes are fully open and needles are shoved into my arms and a gag of some type is put into my mouth. I fight it, but the drugs they've injected into my bloodstream turn my body to lead.

Then, I sleep.

I dream of funguar with Ultimecia's horns. They chase me through an endless series of dirty, smoke-filled bars as clones of the hooker I took home and couldn't fuck laugh at me from the sidelines. My skin itches. My legs feel like stumps. They all wear her tattoos and her crimson-lipped smile.

"You're no man. You're just a scared little boy."

I wake with a scream in my throat, but there's something in my mouth. I try to spit it out, but it won't budge. My hands are bound. My legs, too.

Lia sits beside me, a book in her hand that she closes when she sees I'm awake. I growl my complaint and my question. She seems to understand.

"Detox," she explains. "It's a special blend of potions and esuna. It draws out the toxins in your body to help you reduce your dependence on alcohol."

I like drinking. If I don't, I feel too much. If I don't, I might fall down and never get back up.

"Speaking from experience, this is the worst part," she says.

I can't picture her as the kind of drunk who would need a forced detox. I wonder if it was my fault. If she drank to kill the loss.

She nods like she can read the question in my eyes.

"Everything I cared about was taken from me," she says. "I thought it was better to self-medicate than deal with it. It became a problem."

Something else we have in common.

When I wake up later, the sun is going down and the needles in my arms are gone. The restraints are, too.

I sit up and stretch, and notice, I feel good. That persistent queasy feeling in my stomach is gone. The fog in my head has lifted. It isn't booze I think about, but food.

I can't remember the last time I ate a full meal and I'm starving.

My muscles shake as I slide out of bed. I don't know how long I've been out. My guess is a good part of the day. I'm weak, but a twinge of optimism lifts me to my feet and I stagger to the adjoining bath just off the bedroom.

I look at myself in the bathroom mirror and am startled by what I see. Something is different. I can't place it, but there's something off about my reflection. My cheeks are a ruddy pink and my eyes still puffy from sleep. My complexion has lost its sallowness. I look alive.

None of that is what troubles me.

It's what's missing.

My scar is gone.

* * *

Seifer's been out for three days. Zell worried at first it was his fault. A delayed reaction to his attack, but Lia informs him Seifer is undergoing an intensive detox procedure and will be laid up until his body is clean.

Zell thinks no amount of curatives or medications can completely cleanse Seifer. What ails him can't be purged. The poison goes deeper than that.

He tries not to think about it and buries himself in research. He spends two days interviewing staff and family members and comes up with little he didn't already know. The things he did learn are interesting, but don't have much bearing on his case.

Copernicus, Nic to the family and second in line for the title was childless when he died. The rumor among the staff was that Nic was in love with a man named Adrien. Adrien was a well-known artist who painted surreal landscapes and had money of his own. The two had been together for nearly fifteen years at the time of Nic's death. Word was, Adrien was devastated.

The family didn't approve of their relationship, with the exception of Lia. When pressed to marry anyway and keep his dalliances on the side, Nic refused.

Zell has reached out to Adrien, but so far the man has not returned Zell's calls.

The only other useful bit of information pertained to the eldest brother, Alouiscious and his children. The eldest were fraternal twins. If Lou Massey lived to take the seat, upon his death, his son Persei would inherit the Dukedom. If he was unfit or unwilling to rule, the title would go to his sister, Eridani.

Neither are pleased Lia has inherited what they both believe is rightfully theirs. Per Dollet law, because Alouiscious died before the title could be passed on, it went to the eldest living child of the named ruler. The only way either would be named, was for Lia to die in the fire along with her father and brothers.

That doesn't mean either committed arson, and neither was old enough to have pulled off Seifer's kidnapping. Now that Seifer is without a doubt her son, they stand in line behind him.

This gives Zell a bad feeling about both Lia and Seifer's safety. Whoever is responsible, if their motive is inheritance, both are targets.

He adds them to his list of suspects, above Lia's name. She's hiding or withholding something important. This doesn't mean she's done something wrong, but Zell is sure, whatever it is she won't tell him is the key to all this.

He still hasn't puzzled out the date discrepancies surrounding Seifer's birth. Lia has been occupied and unavailable since the confirmation that Seifer is her spawn.

Selphie enters the library and slips into the chair across from Zell.

"What do we call him?" she asks.

"Call who?" Zell says. He doesn't look up from his list.

"Seifer. It's not really his name. So do we call him 'He is?' Or do we call him by his baby name?"

"You mean birth name?"

"He does kinda look like a Caius, but it would be weird to call him that."

"Don't much care," Zell says. "Whatever name he picks. Probably won't be He Is, so don't get your hopes up."

"Think he'd punch me if I called him that?"

Zell thinks of how Seifer busted his lip the other night. It's mostly healed, but still tender.

"Probably."

"Did you know Lia left his room just like it was when the kidnappers took him?"

Zell's seen it, and it's creepy. He can understand why. If it were him, he wouldn't want the reminder of what he lost. He'll never be a mother, and he doubts he'll be a father, so he can't say what he would really do if he was in Lia's shoes.

"You find anything out from the cousins?" Zell asks.

"Nothing juicy. But everyone loved Nic. No one can understand why anyone would want him dead."

"I can," Zell says. "Greed. Power. Jealousy. Homophobia."

Selphie scowls at the last bit.

"Believe me, it ain't fun," Zell says. "Being hated for something you can't change."

Selphie pats his hand. She's placating him. He's not in the mood.

He stands and closes his files. He needs some air.

* * *

Upon closer inspection, the scar isn't totally gone. A faint line remains, but I have to stare at it with my face next to the glass.

I don't know how I feel about this. It's part of who I am, the cut that ties me to my rival, the beginning of everything. It's also the thing that the haters identify me by. The defining characteristic of who I am and what I did.

I run my fingers over it. The skin is smooth. I wonder about my other scars and lift the hem of my t-shirt.

My chest used to be a latticework of slashes caused by Squall's blade and Trepe's whip and Rinoa's pinwheel. Artful pockmarks from Kinneas's shotgun. They're still there, but they've faded as much as the scar on my face.

The scars Ultimecia left on me are all but gone, too.

Whatever was in that detox cocktail, it's done more than just draw out the poison. It's erased ten or more years of damage.

Too bad it didn't fill out my atrophied muscles. I look like a skin-suit on top of a classroom skeleton.

With mixed feelings and more energy than I've had in ages, I dress and go off in search of food.

I meet Dincht in the hallway. He's wearing that same worried expression I saw the day the results came back. He's so lost in thought, he almost walks right into me.

"Watch where you're going, Chicken-Wuss."

He takes a step back and his face rearranges itself into a scowl like it's made of rubber. He loses the scowl a second later.

"Wow. You look like you actually have a pulse."

"Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated," I say. I want to kick myself for how stupid that sounds. "What do you care?"

"Your mom's payin' me to look out for you. I like my paycheck."

I can't fault his priorities, but I wonder why she needs SeeD here at all.

Right. Someone torched my grandfather and my uncles.

It's then that I realize, some day, I might be the Duke of Dollet.

Me.

The Duke of Dollet.


	7. Chapter 7

**SEVEN**

* * *

Lia went to my apartment for my things while I was unconscious. The only items she returned with were an envelope of pictures, my tattered coat and my gun-blade. The rest, she threw away.

I'm not pissed about it. None of that shit matters. I'd burn it myself, if I cared.

She asks if it's okay to look at the pictures. I tell her to have at it.

There aren't many. More than half are of Raijin and Fujin. Only a few are of me. She sits on the bed and flips through them one by one. Sometimes she smiles. Sometimes, she looks sad.

"Where are your friends now?" Lia asks.

"Don't know," I say. "Haven't heard from them."

"Were you happy at Garden?"

"Sometimes."

"And other times?"

"There were a lot of rules. I don't like being told what to do."

She laughs and I see something of myself there. I wonder if she was ever cut class to smoke cigarettes in a cemetery, or told a teacher to go fuck themselves. I wonder if she had friends like mine.

"I like this one," she says.

I sit on the bed beside her and look at the photo in her hand. It's of the three of us, age twelve, back when Raijin was short and pudgy and Fujin's eyes were both still functional and her pale hair reached her lower back. I have an arm slung around each of them. My smile is bright and cocky, but it's more innocent that I can remember being.

"You can have it," I say.

"You should keep it."

She doesn't have any photos of me, other than my baby pictures.

"Take it," I say.

I get up and go to the desk, where Hyperion rests against the blotter. The edge is dull, and I think I spy specks of dried blood near the hilt. Maybe it's Squall's.

"The memorial service is tomorrow," she says. "I'd like you to come. If you want to."

I consider my options. I didn't know them. Do I really belong at the funeral for family I never even knew?

"Does the rest of the family know about me?"

"Only Ronald," she says. "It would be in poor taste to announce it at a time like this."

I keep forgetting that she must be grieving too. She hides it well.

"Someone's bound to ask questions," I say.

"They won't ask me to my face," she says. "They'll just speculate behind my back. I say let them."

I turn around and face her and her eyes have gone hard and cold and I read her intent loud and clear. She wants them to talk.

She wants someone to be afraid.

Someone burned her family alive, and she wants them to pay.

* * *

Nic's lover Adrien finally calls Zell back. Adrien agrees to speak with him before the memorial, but in private, and only after Zell assured him he was not part of the Massey family.

On the day of the memorial, Zell dresses in his formal uniform and shines his boots. He slicks his hair back into a neat ponytail and double checks that his buttons line up. This is not a typical mission, these are not typical clients, and it's important that he looks the part.

Downstairs, he waits in the library for Adrien to arrive. He's nervous and he can't say why. When the man does arrive, Zell is melting in his uniform.

Adrien is not the kind of man he would imagine someone like Nic Massey would fall in love with. In life, Nic was a tall and strikingly beautiful man. Adrien is not.

He isn't ugly, but he isn't a stand-out. He's short and slender, with dark eyes and dark hair. If Zell passed him on the street, he wouldn't look twice.

There must be more to this man than his looks to keep Nic interested for so long. Zell wonders what that's like. None of his relationships have lasted longer than a few months. Fifteen years is basically a marriage.

He introduces himself and invites Adrien to sit.

"Thanks for talkin' to me," Zell says. "I know today's not the best day for it, but I appreciate it."

"If it helps find the person who did this..." Adrien says.

"That's what Lia hired me for," Zell says.

He doesn't mention that with Seifer around, it's become personal. Not because he cares about Seifer, but because the less time spent in his company, the better.

"Tell me about Nic."

Adrien smiles faintly at the table. "What can I say? He is... was the love of my life. I've never known anyone so vibrant or passionate about being alive."

"Did he have any enemies?"

"Outside of the family? No," Adrien says. "It was the family he had to worry about. Everyone but Lia and his cousin Terra condemned our relationship. The rest, they wanted me gone. Sometimes, I thought Nic only stayed with me to show them that he wouldn't be owned."

Maybe Seifer comes by his rebellious streak honestly.

"He loved me," Adrien says. "I don't doubt that anymore."

"Who was the worst about it?"

"His father," Adrien says. "It was hard not to love Nic, even for those that didn't want us to be together. They fell in line because the Patriarch said so."

Adrien bows his head and then lifts it to stare at the window behind Zell.

"This family has secrets," Adrien said. "There are things they do that would shock you."

"Such as?"

"Several of them still believe that the bloodlines should be kept pure."

Zell frowns. "What, you mean, like marrying cousins?"

Adrien says nothing. He temples his hands against his lips and chin.

"Two hundred years ago, it was common," he says. "Especially in dynasty families."

"It died out, though, right?" Zell says. "It's been outlawed."

"These old families believe they're above the law."

"So, what are you saying?" Zell asks.

"More than I should. They've killed for less."

Zell is not a fan of cryptic statements. He likes truths that he doesn't have to unravel. Facts and not suspicion or hearsay.

"Who still believes that?" he asks.

"Alman believed that decades of marrying outside of the family diluted the line," Adrien says softly. "He was prepared to change that."

Zell's skin crawls.

"But they didn't, right?" he asks. "No one in their right mind would go along with it."

"I suspect those involved were not given a choice," Adrien says. "They compelled Nic to marry a cousin. They wanted Lia to do the same. They both refused and both became victims of Alman's fury behind closed doors. They paid for their disobedience in different ways, but they paid a steep price. Lia was the only thing that kept Nic from walking away."

Zell's patience is running out. This conversation is getting creepier by the minute. He doesn't want to consider the thing that Adrien implies.

"Nic told me, just before he died, he'd been holding on to a secret for over twenty years," Adrien says. "He said just enough for me to put the pieces together."

"What was the secret, then?"

"Lia's missing boy... Lou was the one that took him. Nic planned to confront him. Now they're all dead and the only one left is in danger."

* * *

I dress for the memorial in a suit that costs more than I would make in a year of day labor. The fit is perfect. My hair has been trimmed and slicked back. The man in the mirror is someone I don't know.

Lia smiles her approval when I emerge from the bath. Her eyes go soft and sad and she reaches up to tighten the knot in my tie. I feel like I'm being choked.

"You're going to scare the hell out of them," she says.

"Should I bother to introduce myself?"

"No," she says. "Let them draw their own conclusions."

I like her deviousness and I'm curious about how the family will behave around her. About how she will behave around them.

She slips her hand around my bicep and guides me from the room.

"Don't answer any questions about yourself," she says. "We'll save that for later."

I won't have to pretend. There are too many questions I'm unwilling to answer. Some things are best left alone.

She takes me to the library. Inside, Dincht sits at a table with a dark haired man. They stare at each other in silence and the tension is thick.

"Adrien!" Lia cries. She lets me go and crosses the room with her arms held out. "It's so good to see you."

The man stands. He's slight and a little frail. Not a Massey, judging by his coloring.

"Lia," he greets and accepts her hug. "How are you?"

"As well as can be expected," she says. "How are you?"

"I can't believe he's really gone."

Adrien turns to me. He goes pale and staggers toward me with wide, incredulous eyes.

"Nic?"

"Nope," I say. "Not Nic."

I wonder if they will always think I'm him.

"You're the spitting image," he says, and there is a good deal of sorrow in his voice. "If I didn't know better..."

"I get that a lot."

He looks to Lia for an explanation. She gives none.

"This isn't him," Adrien says. It's a denial but also a question. "This isn't your boy."

Lia places a hand against my arm. Her chin lifts with defiance and pride, but still she doesn't answer.

"Oh, god Lia. Oh, god."

Dincht is more troubled than I've ever seen him. He knows something I don't. His eyes dart around the room, avoiding me and Lia. He's never been good at hiding his feelings.

"Whatever you suspect, keep it to yourself," Lia says. "I have my reasons. Do you understand?"

Adrien nods.

"Good. The memorial is about to start," she says and offers Adrien her hand. "Shall we get this farce over with?"

Interesting that she calls it a farce.

They leave ahead of me. Dincht stands in the middle of the room, his face ashen.

"Why do you look like you're about to barf?" I ask.

He shakes his head and brushes past me. I reach out and grab him by the arm and pull him back.

"Tell me."

"Trust me, you don't want to know."

I tighten my grip and expect a mouth full of knuckles, but he only jerks away from me.

"Dincht."

"I don't think I can say it out loud. And I don't know for sure if it's true."

"If what is true?"

He swallows and covers his mouth like he might actually throw up.

Lia pops her head back inside the library. "It's show time. Come on."

Dincht snaps out of his funk and his posture straightens. The switch, from insecure Dincht to SeeD Dincht is remarkable.

I grab him by the arm again.

"Don't fucking walk away from me," I warn. "You're gonna tell me what you know."

"I don't have to tell you anything your mother doesn't want you to know, now let go before I put your lights out."

"This is my life we're talking about."

"Yeah," he says, "but it's hers too."

* * *

Author's notes: Thank you to those that took the time to leave a review or follow this story. This is the final update for this site, but if you like it and want to keep reading, head over to AO3 for future updates. Thanks for reading, and special thank yous to laylaevercrest, kleptomaniac0, blue moomba, Sofhiel2212, kikodaisywrites, sorceresseternityIII for the reviews and follows.


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